Cowen
A masculine name meaning "victorious" or "brave leader" in Welsh.
Name Census estimates that about 258 living Americans carry the first name Cowen. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Cowen today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Cowen births was 2010 (20 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Cowen. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Cowen with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
258
~ 1 in 1,328,505 Americans
Peak year
2010
20 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,848
Tracked since 2004
Census
Cowen in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 257 people with the first name Cowen, which placed it at #32,623 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#32,623
National first-name rank
People counted
257
257 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
79.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Cowen
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cowen is White at 79.8%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (5.8%) and Hispanic (5.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Cowen described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Cowen at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White79.8% · 205
- Two or more races5.8% · 15
- Hispanic or Latino5.1% · 13
- Black or African American4.7% · 12
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.7% · 7
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.9% · 5
Popularity
Cowen: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Cowen from the 2000s through to the 2020s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 113 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Cowen remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Cowen by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Cowen during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Cowens live
Origin
Meaning and history of Cowen
The given name Cowen is of Welsh origin, deriving from the Old Welsh word "cŵn," which means "hound" or "wolf." It is believed to have first emerged during the 5th or 6th century CE, when the Welsh language began to take shape as a distinct branch of the Brittonic Celtic languages.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Cowen can be found in the ancient Welsh manuscript known as the "Black Book of Carmarthen," which dates back to the 13th century. In this text, the name appears in the form "Cowyn," likely referring to a person of that era.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the name Cowen was primarily concentrated in Wales and the surrounding regions of the British Isles. It was particularly prevalent among Welsh nobility and the landed gentry, with several notable figures bearing this name during this period.
One such figure was Cowen ap Rhys, a Welsh prince who lived in the late 12th century and played a significant role in the conflicts between the Welsh and the Norman invaders. Another notable bearer of the name was Cowen Fychan, a 14th-century Welsh landowner and military commander who fought alongside Owain Glyndŵr during the Welsh Revolt against the English crown.
As the centuries passed, the name Cowen spread beyond Wales and the British Isles, carried by Welsh emigrants and settlers to various parts of the world. In the 16th century, a Cowen ap Gwilym was among the early Welsh settlers in the British colony of Virginia, while in the 19th century, a Cowen Pritchard was a notable figure in the Welsh community of Patagonia, Argentina.
Other notable individuals with the given name Cowen include Cowen Troughton (1784-1859), a British-born Australian pioneer and landowner; Cowen Jenkin (1822-1885), a Welsh-born American industrialist and philanthropist; and Cowen Truck (1863-1950), a Welsh-American professional baseball player who played in the Major Leagues in the late 19th century.
While the name Cowen has become less common in recent times, it remains a part of the rich tapestry of Welsh and Celtic naming traditions, carrying with it a connection to the ancient language and culture of Wales.
People
Cowen + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Cowen as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Cowen: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Cowen?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 258 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Cowen going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,328,505 US residents.
Is Cowen a common name?
We classify Cowen as "Very Rare". It ranks above 77.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 260 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Cowen most popular?
The single biggest year for Cowen was 2010, when 20 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Cowen is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Cowen in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 257 people with the name Cowen, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #32,623 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Cowen in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Cowen?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Cowen leans strongly male. 244 people counted with this name were male (97.2%), compared with 7 female bearers (2.8%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Cowen?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cowen is White at 79.8%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (5.8%) and Hispanic (5.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Cowen most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Cowen in the 2020 Census, accounting for 79.8% (205 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Cowen in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Cowen a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Cowen in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Cowen still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Cowen in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Cowen can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Cowen?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.